Bridget Riley: Paintings and Related Work

This Bridget Riley exhibition catalogue accompanies the National Gallery exhibition Bridget Riley: Paintings and Related Work, 24 Nov 2010 to 22 May 2011, where Britain’s greatest abstract artist unveils an exciting new exhibition, ahead of her 80th birthday.

Exploring the most recent paintings of one of Britain’s greatest and most influential abstract artists, the exhibition examines the relationship between Bridget Riley’s work and that of the Old Masters Raphael and Mantegna, and modern masters Cézanne, Seurat and Matisse.

For 50 years Bridget Riley has been regarded as one of Britain’s most important abstract painters, and this groundbreaking exhibition and catalogue mark the artist’s lifelong passion for paintings in the National Gallery, with which she has a long association – first as a young student and copyist, and later as a Trustee.

Significantly, two of Riley’s works will be made directly onto the walls of the exhibition space: the first of these – Composition with Circles 7 – is being created especially for this exhibition; the second is a version of her wall-painting Arcadia.

Colin Wiggins’s introduction re-presents paintings from the National Gallery, by Raphael, Mantegna, and Seurat, chosen by Bridget Riley to be exhibited alongside her own work.

Authors Michael Bracewell and Marla Prather trace the processes and development of internal movement and musicality within Bridget Riley’s work, in a beautifully illustrated memento of this important event at the National Gallery, London.